102 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



the dog, and possibly of other animals; and in matters beyond 

 its daily experience it evinces no special discernment." 



To me it seems that all three of those opinions are off the 

 target. The dog is not a wild, untrammeled animal ; and neither 

 dogs, cats nor savage men evince any special discernment 

 "beyond the range of their daily experience." Moreover, there 

 are some millions of tame men of whom the same may be said 

 with entire safety. 



Very often the question is asked: "Is the African elephant 

 equal in intelligence and training capacity to the Indian species?" 



To this we must answer: Not proven. We do not know. 

 The African species never has been tried out on the same long 

 and wide basis as the Indian. Many individual African 

 elephants, very intelligent, have been trained, successfully, and 

 have given good accounts of themselves. For my own part 

 I am absolutely sure that when taken in hand at the same age, 

 and trained on the same basis as the Indian species, the African 

 elephant will be found mentally quite the equal of the Indian, 

 and just as available for work or performances. 



No negro tribe really likes to handle elephants and train 

 them. The Indian native loves elephants, and enjoys training 

 them and working with them. It is these two conditions that 

 have left the African elephant far behind the procession. The 

 African elephant belongs to the great Undeveloped Continent. 

 He has been, and he still is, mercilessly pursued and slaughtered 

 for his tusks. All the existing species of African elephants are 

 going down and out before the ivory hunters. We fear that 

 they will all be dead one hundred years from this time, or even 

 less. A century hence, 'when the last africanus has gone to join 

 the mammoth and the mastodon, his well protected wild 

 congener in India still will be devouring his four hundred pounds 

 of green fodder per day, and the tame ones will be performing 

 to amuse the swarming human millions of this overcrowded 

 world. 



In the minds of our elephant keepers, familiarity with ele- 



